Hero With No Fear
by patientalien
Summary: After a particularly harrowing mission, Anakin finds himself unable to do something he loves.
1. Chapter 1

**title** Hero With No Fear  
><strong>author<strong> **patientalien**  
><strong>word count<strong> 1050  
><strong>rating<strong> PG  
><strong>summary<strong> After a particularly harrowing mission, Anakin finds himself unable to do something he loves.  
><strong>notes<strong> Written for the "phobia" prompt on my **hc_bingo** card.

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><p>The yellow Delta-6 rips through the trees, engines flaming, controls shot. This is not a controlled fall, it is a crash in the most basic definition of the term. It is not the kind of crash even the best pilot in the galaxy can turn around, and so when the starfighter buries itself in the soft soil, the expectation is to find a body, not a survivor.<p>

But since the pilot is Anakin Skywalker, body recovery turns into a rescue mission. He is alive, barely, protected by his skill with the Force and his stubborn determination to live.

88888

The bacta heals the worst of his injuries. His Master and Padawan come to see him, he complains about the food in the Halls of Healing, and about being sidelined from the war. He is eager to be back in the fight, always on the move.

He wants to get back out as soon as he is released, but he is given the instruction to build up his physical strength again. He does not want to; he just wants to fly.

88888

His fighter is destroyed beyond repair, but they provide him a new one, yellow and gleaming in the hanger. He grins; a new fighter means more opportunities for customization, it means he can tinker with it all he wants until it hums better than the old one.

He climbs into the cockpit to give it a test run, but as the canopy closes, he smells fuel, feels the engine shudder, the sweltering heat of re-entry. The galaxy tilts as his heart hammers in his chest, knowing the impact is going to come, that he's going to be stuck in the cockpit and no one will ever find him.

The Hero With No Fear panics, and jumps out of the cockpit, down to the ground, crouching with one hand on the deck platings, panting. He doesn't understand his physical reaction; he's crashed before.

He's never been stuck in his downed fighter, injured and alone, for five days before.

88888

He avoids the hanger, instead working with Ahsoka on sparring and trying to meditate. Neither help the sick feeling in his gut every time he thinks about his fighter. He wants to work on it, wants to play with the engines and the manifolds, but going near the hanger gives him cold sweats.

He doesn't mention it to anyone, doesn't want anyone to think him weak, stupid, childish. He is the Chosen One, and he can get over this on his own.

88888

He leaves his window open at night so he can escape if he needs to. He dreams about the crash, wakes up and stretches his limbs out to prove he can still move them, isn't stuck in the tiny cockpit, inspects his body to make sure he is not bleeding. He hoards bottles of water to stave off the throbbing ache of dehydration.

Soon, he doesn't even bother trying to sleep. His bedroom is too claustrophobic, and so he rests in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, underneath a blanket of artificial stars.

88888

Obi-Wan asks why he hasn't taken his fighter out yet, why it's still sitting on its hardstand gathering dust. He can't say. Just shakes his head, claims other obligations.

He knows Obi-Wan does not believe him.

88888

He tries again one night, when he's sure no one else is around. Steps tentatively into the hanger, trying to calm his breathing through the Force. He manages to make it to his fighter, and he runs his hands lovingly over the wings. He loves his fighter, loves to fly, he reminds himself.

He pulls himself into the cockpit and sits with the canopy open, inspecting the control panel, testing the start-up protocols. His heart pounds painfully in his chest, but he tries to ignore it, finally allowing the canopy to close around him.

He lasts exactly two and a half minutes.

88888

The ritual repeats itself every night for the next week, until he is able to close the canopy and start the engines and remain seated, eyes squeezed shut, for twenty minutes. Thirty. An hour. He still can't bring himself to take off, but he can at least sit in the cockpit and breathe, now.

88888

Eventually, they are called back to the war. A fleet of Separatist ships surround a vital Republic world, and it's up to Anakin, the Resolute, and the 501st to break the blockade. They've done it a hundred times before.

Anakin stands in the hanger bay of the Resolute beside his fighter, Gold Squadron standing at attention in front of him, waiting for his order. He knows they expect him to be out in the fight with them; he has never once willingly sat out a space battle. With his troops, and Ahsoka, looking to him expectantly, he knows he has to swallow his dread and do his duty.

He expects once he's out there it will all be fine, he just needs to take that step.

88888

He is wrong. He leads the fighter squadron, his shiny-new yellow fighter streaking out from the Resolute, the Clones' ARC-170s dutifully following behind. The first Separatist cannon bolt screams past him, and he forgets everything. He feels like he is going to pass out, hyperventilating, heart racing.

He curses himself for his weakness. He is the Hero With No Fear, and he's paralyzed by his terror. He feels ridiculous, stupid and very, very young.

Taking a moment to regroup, he calls on the Force, sinks into it, trying to regain the kind of single-minded battle meditation he has always excelled in. Everything else fades away.

88888

Anakin hardly realizes he's back until Ahsoka is tugging on his tunic. He blinks, discovers he's standing on the landing deck. He takes stock, counts his men. Only two lost, and the others are in good shape. He feels better, relief making his shoulders feel lighter, the dread that has clutched his insides melting.

He knows that it will take longer; one time out isn't enough to undo whatever's wrong in his brain, but it gives him the strength to keep it to himself, to continue to act as if everything is fine. He is the Hero With No Fear, and he cannot be stopped.


	2. tonight we ride on clouds of fire

**Title:** Tonight We Ride on Clouds of Fire  
><strong>Challenge: SWMININANO2<strong>  
><strong>Prompt:<strong> starfighter  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 1025  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Anakin, Ahsoka, Yularen  
><strong>Rating:<strong> R  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Even the best star pilot in the galaxy can't work miracles.  
><strong>Author's Notes:<strong> So, uh, this is kind of a companion to "Hero With No Fear". An homage to a scene in _The Descent_ by Jeff Long. Some gore. Title from "Black Fire Upon Us" by Dethklok.

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><p>Ahsoka Tano watched from the bridge of the Resolute as the space battle raged in front of her. She pinpointed her Master's fighter, vivid yellow against the black of the night-time sky, pulling out of a dive that any other pilot wouldn't even consider. Of course, her Master wasn't any other pilot.<p>

She watched, trying to keep her breathing steady, as Anakin's fighter whipped through the battle, laying waste to the Vulture fighters in its path. Laser cannon blasts sliced out from the Separatist cruiser, laying waste to the fighters in its path, Republic and Separatist alike.

The Force sang around her and she nearly shouted out a warning, forgetting for a brief instant that Anakin wouldn't be able to hear her. She ran to the viewport wall and watched, horrified, as his fighter began screaming towards the atmosphere. Suddenly, Anakin's voice broke onto the overhead coms. "This is Skywalker. I'm going planetside. Keep up the assault and meet me down there!"

"General Skywalker, is this a controlled landing?" Admiral Yularen asked, calm as a stone.

"Negative," Anakin responded, voice tight. "My controls are shot. I'm going down hot." Ahsoka's stomach knotted with dread and she looked up at the Admiral.

"Understood, General," Yularen replied, and turned to one of the Clone officers on the bridge. "Track General Skywalker and prepare for retrieval."

A wash of terrible pain washed over Ahsoka and she dropped to her knees with a strangled cry, clutching her arms over her stomach, leaning forward so her head touched the cool deck plating. "Commmander Tano!" She felt Yularen's hand on her shoulder, but she couldn't respond, couldn't stop shaking. It felt like something had been forcibly ripped from her very being.

"Master..." she managed to gasp. "Oh, oh no."

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><p>He'd done his best to slow his descent before hitting the ground. The best pilot in the Order, in the galaxy, and he'd been able to use the Force and gravity to glide the fighter into a grove of trees. It still wasn't ideal, and the impact was still enough to knock him unconscious.<p>

He awoke to dripping water, and a tinny voice beside his head asking his status. He flitted his eyes open, blood flowing into them from a deep gash along his hairline. His mechno was a tangled wreck of sparking machinery, and his left arm looked - and felt - like ground meat. The air tasted metallic, poisonous. Anakin reached up with difficulty, pain dancing up his back and rib cage, and grabbed his mask, fitting it tight over his face. Sweet, cool, oxygen flooded his senses, made him more lucid. He almost wished he hadn't done that, because lucidity made the pain appear, and the pain was epic.

He tried to push up on the cockpit canopy, but it wouldn't budge, and he couldn't wrap his consciousness around the Force enough to have much of an effect. His lightsaber had fallen down by his feet, and maneuvering to reach it would have been impossible. He pushed his mask up, spit blood onto the control panel, reseated the mask.

"Master. Come in. Master, please."

He couldn't respond, couldn't think of the words he needed to say to tell her he was alive. Instead, he closed his eyes.

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><p>When he woke up again, things seemed even more hazy than before. He'd vomited in the mask and clumsily emptied it, knowing he should count himself lucky he hadn't aspirated, but unable to think in coherent phrases. He licked his parched, cracked, swollen lips, wondered fleetingly how long he'd been there. He was thirsty. He hurt.<p>

"Master? Artoo said he can't get the cockpit open. Master, answer me."

She sounded tired. Anakin was tired. He wanted nothing more than to sleep; he pushed a hand against the cockpit to show Artoo he was alive, then slumped back down, the small movement sapping his energy. He slept.

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><p>There were monsters in the woods around him. Anakin could see them through the fogged-up cockpit, moving in the periphery of his vision, darting across his line of sight. Man-shaped monsters, hooting and calling to one another in the dark.<p>

"Master, we have a lock on your location. Please, answer me!"

"It's been four days, Commander Tano."

Four days. That much Anakin was able to process. The cockpit began to close in on him, and a scream ripped itself from his damaged throat.

* * *

><p>He'd thrown up in his mask again. Anakin flitted open his eyes, the lids stuck together by dried blood. He could hear voices, not just through the comm, but outside the fighter. The monsters had come closer, had decided to stop waiting, had decided to descend upon him. A green flash on the outside, and the cockpit canopy was lifted. He wanted to throw up his hands to shield himself, but he couldn't move.<p>

"Oh, Master!" cried the monster with Ahsoka's voice. He felt himself lifted, and tried to fight. He couldn't, couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but close his eyes and hope that when the end came, it came quickly.

That Anakin was still alive was a surprise to all of them. Ahsoka watched as the medics worked to stabilize him enough to transport back to the Resolute, amazed at her Master's pure dumb luck. Of course, Jedi did not believe in luck, but she'd spent enough time with Anakin now to doubt that particular belief.

Hypos hissed, a backboard laid down; Anakin grunted as they moved him onto it, encompassing his neck in a high brace. His left arm was shot through with deep red and black - infection, gangrene. Bacta was injected directly into his shoulder, his hip, his legs. He vomited again, thick and bloody, lips frothed with pink.

The medics were grim, but Ahsoka knew - if he had survived this long, he would survive a little longer. He had to.

She ran her hand down his cheek, and he slitted his eyes open. "It'll be okay, Master." He didn't seem to notice her, eyes sliding closed as the medics lifted the backboard and carried him to the gunship and safety.


End file.
